luchog
5th November 2007, 12:27 PM
Not sure if this is old news, but I was just sent this recent article:
Patient's vision: Treating cancer without chemo (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003994427_cancer05.html)
Excerpst:
Doctors already use a treatment called radiofrequency ablation to kill cancer. The method involves inserting needles into tumors and killing them with electrodes. The invasive procedure is limited because it can reach only certain sites, mostly small tumors, and it can damage healthy cells in the surrounding area.
Curley asked whether Kanzius could find a substance that could attach to cancer cells and burn when hit with radio waves, sparing healthy cells.
Kanzius said he might be able to use nanoparticles, molecules so small that 75,000 to 100,000 lined up side by side equal the width of a strand of human hair. He thought nanoparticles potentially could be directed to travel through the bloodstream and stick only to cancer cells — a patient would swallow a pill or take a shot containing them.
Curley said the treatment is the most promising he has seen because it has the potential to kill cancer — without invasive treatment or surgery — that doctors now have no way of detecting. The next step for scientists is to perfect a method of binding nanoparticles with antibodies that, when introduced into the bloodstream, will attach only to cancer cells while avoiding normal cells. He said the treatment could work on any kind of cancer, and he estimates clinical trials are three to four years away.
It sounds interesting; but of course, so have many potential treatments that failed to live up to their promise.
I've tried to find more info, but everything that shows up is from 2005 at the latest; so it sounds like there've either been no new advances, or the tech was tested and failed. Does anyone have any more recent information from a more scientific and less sensational source?
Patient's vision: Treating cancer without chemo (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003994427_cancer05.html)
Excerpst:
Doctors already use a treatment called radiofrequency ablation to kill cancer. The method involves inserting needles into tumors and killing them with electrodes. The invasive procedure is limited because it can reach only certain sites, mostly small tumors, and it can damage healthy cells in the surrounding area.
Curley asked whether Kanzius could find a substance that could attach to cancer cells and burn when hit with radio waves, sparing healthy cells.
Kanzius said he might be able to use nanoparticles, molecules so small that 75,000 to 100,000 lined up side by side equal the width of a strand of human hair. He thought nanoparticles potentially could be directed to travel through the bloodstream and stick only to cancer cells — a patient would swallow a pill or take a shot containing them.
Curley said the treatment is the most promising he has seen because it has the potential to kill cancer — without invasive treatment or surgery — that doctors now have no way of detecting. The next step for scientists is to perfect a method of binding nanoparticles with antibodies that, when introduced into the bloodstream, will attach only to cancer cells while avoiding normal cells. He said the treatment could work on any kind of cancer, and he estimates clinical trials are three to four years away.
It sounds interesting; but of course, so have many potential treatments that failed to live up to their promise.
I've tried to find more info, but everything that shows up is from 2005 at the latest; so it sounds like there've either been no new advances, or the tech was tested and failed. Does anyone have any more recent information from a more scientific and less sensational source?